


The Crow and The Falcon

by janjanfollower



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cowgirl Position, F/M, Secret Crush, sex in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:10:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6640939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janjanfollower/pseuds/janjanfollower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vex was an idiom whose language was lost to creation. Her truths were shadowed while also laid bare, she was a jigsaw puzzle whose picture constantly changed. Percy couldn't help but be curious by her.</p><p>On a night of shared tinkering, he asked her a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been reading fanfiction for a few weeks, because I've been busy with life. When I came back to ao3 a few days ago, I saw explicit fanfiction in the Critical Role tag. And you know what that means? That means the glass ceiling has finally broken, and I can reveal myself to be a master craftsman of sin to my fandom.
> 
> I've been wanting to write Perc'alia (or as I like to call it, Bad News Bears) for a while now, but it wasn't until after I read mischief7manager's opening paragraph to 'so let's love fully, and let's love loud' that I got the real inspiration. So thank you so much for that man, I'm glad I can write one of my favorite het ships, and even better, write them boning.

Pervical de Rolo has been called many things in his life. Genius, stubborn, a betting man, a fool, soft-toned, unassuming. And he was all of these things. But he was not stupid.

 One would have to be blind to ignore Vex'ahlia's flirtations. She had that personality, twirling her finger around anyone who could possibly chase after her, curious and seeking that advantage in others. He'd seen her play others like flutes countless times throughout the years, using her appealing form to get any edge, any favor. It was clever. _She_ was clever. But he's not stupid.

And they held this respect for each other. What Vex used in her charms, Percy used in his smarts. Perhaps they were indeed two sides of the same coin, throwing their skills to whatever helped push them forward. Maybe that was why Percy had more of a fondness towards her than anyone else in Vox Machina.

Percy couldn't help himself but be curious. If they were of the same coin, then it wouldn't be far off to assume that what laid in her heart was rarely, if ever, meant to see the light of day. He himself was, and still remains to be, a man of many personal secrets. The fact that the truth of his family had remained so close to his chest for as long as it had was only proof of that. The idea that Vex was also a lady of secrets...interested him. He couldn't help it.

She was an enigma of a woman, and Percy felt he knew so much and so little about her. She was an opened book, but the words that lay within were riddles in a language lost with the titans of creation. Her truths may be bare, but the meaning behind those truths were locked away, sealed under a puddle of magma. She was a jigsaw puzzle, a curiosity. And it seemed that every time he had begun to crack into that puzzle, to understand what the final result was meant to be, she introduced a new truth that contradicted all he knew. Every second he got closer, he was pushed back to the starting point.

It was frustrating. And fascinating.

When Vex invited herself into his faux tinker room—a crude facsimile of his workshop back in the deserted halls of Greyskull Keep—a thought in the back of his mind saw this as a good opportunity to learn more about her; specifically, her intentions at him.

Maybe it was that most of the things he made went to either him or Vex, his ever-willing guinea pig for interesting contraptions. Maybe she was appealed by the idea of free stuff at no effort to her. Whatever reason it was, Percy wasn't stupid enough to not see that any affection she's shown that wasn't to Vax, was to him. And that fact was another riddle that he couldn't read, another message carved in stone lost to the weather of time.

Hours deep into their shared tinkering—Percy leading the helm and Vex offering what little service she could, watching him work with curious but excited eyes whenever her help was not required—Percy let himself steal glances up to her through the bristle of her broom, feigning deep concentration. When he lifted his head from the head of the broom, he spoke.

"You know, some would be alarmed at us down here together," he said, trying his best to sound lost in thought with a hand to his chin and eyes still down at her new toy. He didn't notice Vex cock her head to the side, seeing it only through blurred peripheral vision, but she spoke up soon enough.

"What do you mean?"

"I feel as though you've been... perhaps more affectionate as of late," he began, leaning down to the handle of the broom instead. The inlaid runes swirled and danced against the wood grain, tinted just the barest of blues. "If one wasn't so cautious, they might presume we're of the same affinity as your brother and Keyleth."

It's the scoff he heard that made his eyes focus to the woman, watching her flick tucked-in bangs away from her forehead, an absent move for one lost in thought. "My brother and I may be alike in many things, but like that, we're not." He stood up straight, losing his manufactured interest in the broom, and showed her his attention.

"He can't say what he needs to say until he's pressed against a corner. Even then, it's hard to get an answer out." Percy couldn't help but smirk at that statement, finding hypocrisy within it the moment the words left her mouth. She didn't notice, for she continued. "My philosophy? Tell people you care about, that you care about them. Be straightforward in your intentions. Not much wrong can be done with that." She grinned as her hip leaned against the anvil, her folded arms and crossed ankles revealing the paradigm of casual. Percy smiled alongside her, but less sincere as he went into his next point.

"Very peculiar that you phrase it that way, I'd say,"

"Oh?"

He swallowed, tucking his hands behind his back, letting time pass as he fully thought out his words. "You...seem to be a woman who enjoys a chase,"

She laughed, a hum of air through closed lips, as she pushed against the anvil to find a proper seat. "There's nothing wrong with a good chase every now and then," she agreed. "Gets the blood flowing, after all."

He watched her sit herself down on a seat not too far from the anvil, crossing her legs. "Is that so?" Percy asked. She nodded, smile clear.

Percy walked around the table the broom was lying upon, heading towards Vex. "And what if," he began, desperately willing his cheeks not to flush against his want, "the person you were chasing was never aware of this hunt?" It took more will than he expected to look Vex'ahlia in the eyes, watching her reaction. Her expression was blank, more confused than anything else, as the silence fell between them while Vex absorbed his words.

The changes that happened lasted no more than two seconds total.

Her eyes flashed bright, eyebrows raising and her mouth opening just a fraction of a hair, before her expression fell back down. It wasn't into its earlier confusion however, as the expression...was very hard to read. It was clearly one of sadness, a sorrow or a dismay, but its exact intentions were vague and muddied. Did she even know what her face was saying to him? Percy couldn't be sure. It was another mystery to add to the puzzle of Vex.

Vex stood up from her seat, less than half a head shorter than Percy, looking up to his face. There was an intensity that was unfamiliar to him; a goal that wasn't one related to gold or blood. He hadn't expected Vex to lean up and press her lips against his.

She held no passion in her action, no force or drive, no thrill or desire. There was only fact, and the fact of her face against his, her eyes closed as he stood still, unsure what to do. This felt more of a... declaration. A statement of reality.

An apology.

She pulled away, eyes still locked on his. His mouth was closed, but he felt his eyebrows furrowed together despite himself. Was he, in fact, stunned? Shocked?

A sardonic voice in the back of his mind laughed; this puzzle, this mystery woman, never failed to catch him off-guard.

"I do like you, Percy," she said, voice whispered and soft, travelling just far enough for his ears to catch in this magically-summoned marble room. "I'm sorry I never made that clear for you." It hit him in that moment what that look was, what nuance of sorrow it displayed, and it hit him as hard as blow of poison to the pit of his stomach to see her face clear in its regret.

A beat of silence fell in the tinker room, and despite himself, Percy let a laugh stumble from his lips. He removed his glasses, wiping the lenses with the bottom hem of his work shirt to stall for time. Even if her edges were slightly blurred, he couldn't remove his eyes from Vex. The only thing he could find worthy enough for attention was her face, his and hers separated by this ball of negative, the air of their actions and words hanging between the two like mistletoe. When his fingers finished wiping the glass, he didn't put his glasses back on, instead laying them on the anvil where she had been leaning on not a minute ago.

"Apology accepted," And he kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The raunchy stuff'll be coming in the next few days. Hope you enjoyed.


	2. Chapter 2

He held her face like fine china, delicate yet sturdy to the touch and beautiful in its simplicity.

Percy wasn't used to kissing many women. Being a de Rolo meant he was held in a higher status than the citizens of Whitestone, and any affair with the opposite sex had been of lust, a fervor of needing either tension relief or shared nights of company. He was caught off-guard by how...nice this felt.

Vex stepped closer to him, pressing her torso against his, wrapping her arms around his waist as he hesitated for a moment—he didn't want to let go of her face, still marveling in the back of his mind at how smooth and flawless it was—before his own arms slowly snaked under hers, palms resting against her back and a finger slowly tracing circles on her shoulder blade.

He wasn't sure if he... _loved_ Vex. Love was a very strong word, one that made his throat swell and his cheeks blanch. He knew that he cared for her very deeply, and he knew that he had the greatest of respects for her, but love? It...didn't feel like the right word.

And knowing Vex, he assumed it would be the wrong word for her to use as well.

Percy shunned all love-thoughts in his mind to clear and dissolve so he could stay within the moment. Whatever he was thinking, he knew, was _not_ better than this.

He knew he didn't want to be forthright. Vex was still a woman whom he valued as a person above all else, the last thing Percy would want would to make her feel uncomfortable or rushed in any way in their shared moment of (uncommon) intimacy. He didn't realise that forthrightness was exactly what Vex wanted, however, until she grabbed his arms and thrust them down to her ass.

Percy pulled back, looking at Vex with a half-cocked smile, eyebrows raised and only thinking _This damn woman_. Vex looked at him and gave the coyest grin he'd ever seen a living person wear.

Well. If things were going to be like that, then...

He dipped his head into Vex's neck, sucking on her skin. He only barely noticed how flushed she'd become, because her moaning vibrated against her neck and he couldn't help but be encouraged by it. Their hands slid along each other, Percy unbuckling what was left of her armor and Vex tugging at something along his breeches.

Percy had always been a man living in the moment. Not that he was short-sighted, nor that he disregarded the past once it had gone, but he preferred to be more aware of where he was. As they stood together however, sharing and undressing each other with a slowness yet a speed that neither expected, Percy didn’t realise they'd been standing so long that both of them were in a heavy state of half-dress when he moved away from Vex and looked down at each other. A small stumble of a nervous laugh left his open lips, and Vex stood stunned for a second before she moved to grab her tossed tunic and fur capelet.

“Perhaps it’s for the better we stopped where we did, before ah…” Percy trailed off, putting his glasses back on his face and tightening the laces on his breeches. Vex laughed with him, more nervously than heartily. She re-buckled her tunic to her chest (a hot red thought in Percy wanted to know how those breasts would feel under his hands, if they were as firm as they looked in Vasselheim), and her hands smoothed over the stray hairs from her braid.

“I’m assuming we’re going to your room?” Vex’ahlia, quick as a whip, never caught off-guard, as if they hadn’t spend however long they had together, with her smirk sharp like cut glass. He was in the best kind of awe.

Her charm may have lured him to her long ago, but that didn’t mean Percival de Rolo III didn’t have his class in the face of his predator. He smiled as well, perhaps more of a predatory smirk than a tell of happiness. “Travelling together would probably be in poor taste, wouldn’t it?”

Vex grimaced, her adult charm falling into fifteen-year-old genuineness, a reflection from days before they’d become Vox Machina, perhaps even before they’d all met at Gatshadow. “Probably,” she sighed. “If Vax sees us, I wouldn’t ever hear the end of it. And neither would you, I’d think.”

The memory of Vax’s deep scowl from when he admitted that he’d sprung the trap flashed through his vision, and it made a chill run up his spine. “I doubt it,” he said flatly. Percy hadn’t even realised his shoulders tensed at that thought until Vex kissed his cheek and he felt his tension release. He looked at her dumbly, watching her smirk grow into a smile as she spoke.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” she said, punctuating the farewell with a wink, and spun on her heel to walk out the workshop.

He watched her leave, mouth slightly agape. He wasn’t even sure what thoughts were passing through his mind in those now-silent moments of the workshop, until time slid itself back into his soul and left him shocked—and smiling—by what kind of life he now lives.

* * *

Percy softly opened his door, moving slowly as to not make too much noise against the hinges. He scanned the room, wondering if Vex had beat him upstairs. As he clicked his door shut (and quickly reopened it to leave enough of a welcome for Vex to slip in), he was caught off-guard as a thin but well-calloused hand pushed his chest against the door, and Vex’s lips pressed against him.

The dash to undress the other was electrifying as they moved across the room in an awkward waltz. Granted, it'd been a while since Percy spent a night with a lady; the last time was with Lillith after she told him she would want to help him relieve his tension. This felt different, however. He wasn't running away from a horrid nightmare, a twang of fear ringing in his ribcage like a tuning fork, but he was instead running _at_ the fire. There was a passion between them, and he was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

And the same was to Vex, he thought with a smile.

Before he could think further, Vex pushed him onto his bed as he watched her naked form slowly crouch to her knees, sitting between his legs. Percy couldn't help but be curious. The look in her eyes, the one that spoke expertise and also hunger, as she looked at his flushed cock... He was excited to see what would happen.

Then she wrapped her mouth around him, and he exhaled in a shudder he didn't know he could produce.

Percy only knew so much about Vex. She and Vax kept their lives prior to Vox Machine secret, their struggles and lifestyles close to their chests. He respected it, never questioned it. But _damn_ , he really did want to know where she learned these sorts of skills. He didn’t realise until Vex began speaking that he was saying his inner monologue aloud, her mouth popping from his head and sending a chill that died halfway through his spine.

"It's been a long time," Vex hummed, the vibrations through his dick sending chills up his spine. "There's a lot to me you don't know, Percival," she smiled, but her smile fell through the fog of his vision as he closed his eyes and let himself feel this feeling as Vex slid her tongue against the bottom ridge of his cock.

He hadn't been blown in a while, and when he had been it wasn't... Enjoyable, was perhaps the word for it. A man can never complain about being in this position, of course, but in the past several years he hadn't found the good release of pleasure that he would've hoped for. Vex was that perfect string, however. Whatever skill she may have gained, whatever life she'd lived to learn how to do this, it certainly paid off in dividends as Percy gripped the bedsheets, trying his best not to thrust into Vex's mouth.

He wasn’t even that forceful in bed, but Vex proved to be a good challenge against that philosophy. When he wasn’t watching her with amazed eyes, he ran his hands through her hair, undoing her braid and combing it behind her back. For that half-moment, watching Vex’s hair unravel itself to being far too much longer than he would’ve expected from her braid, he felt a muscle slide along the tip of his head and Percy hissed through his teeth before he fell onto his back, rubbing his eyes to try and ground him into this world.

"You know," she said a few moments later as her hands stroked against him. Percy shivered for breath as his near-sighted vision strained to look at Vex, barely able to remember that they sat in Scanlan’s mansion and not Greyskull Keep. "It's been a while since I've done this." She grinned, looking up at Percy, resting her head against his inner thigh while her hands slid up and down his slick dick. "Maybe five years? Something like that?" She laughed, a beautiful feeling accompanied by a beautiful sound, kissing his shaft. He grunted, only barely able to be aware at how he must look to Vex right now.

Percy sat up, seeing Vex raise her head from his thigh, and when he gestured for her to come up as well, she climbed up on the bed. Without words but with her sly grin plain as day, she leaned against the plush headboard, her chest and neck softly red from her blood, spreading her own legs as her hands laid and toyed with her breasts. As he moved towards her nethers, he could only think how calmly excited she looked.

He took his time sliding down. Wherever he could, he let his hands touch her skin, enjoying the feel of her under him and the soft sounds of encouragement that passed Vex's lips. By the time he slid down, smelling the sex between her legs, he instead moved his head to suck on her thigh. Watching her drop her head to rest on the pillows, reveling in the feeling, made Percy smile against her skin. Apparently, he too was still well-versed in making the opposite sex moan and writhe under his touch.

He slinked his hands under her legs, and when his tongue slid up her slit she let out a low hiss of a moan. It hit Percy harder than he expected, but not in his crotch like he would've thought. It hit him in his heart, a surge of feeling that felt odd in his soul running faster than all else, and he found it hard to take his hands off Vex.

It was less her taste that made him continue forward, licking small circles against her clit which brought her hips to press just barely against his face, but it was more her sounds. Every action he made had Vex moaning aloud, possibly louder than even she had expected; but any thought of subtlety that may have passed through the woman's brain was wiped away as Percy laid his tongue flat and slid up, watching her entire body shiver with the movement.

He followed along her actions, pushing where she pressed forward, changing his actions once he saw a lull in her. Before long, she was pressing her hips into his face, running her hands through her hair with her eyes closed, and he laughed against her as he lapped against her cunt and watched her moan once again. When he saw Vex arch her back up and her voice raise half an octave, he made sure to pull away, sliding to kiss her legs and her stomach, smiling without shame when she was able to shoot him a well-hearted glare through lustful eyes.

"Gods above, Percival," she laughed, cupping his cheek when he arrived to her, still on his own hands and knees. "And you were shocked at how well  _I_ blew you."

"You're not the only one with experience," he said, and leaned in to kiss her. He wondered, in a dim part of his mind that wasn't aching to be with Vex in this exact moment, if she was able to taste herself on his tongue. He didn't really know if that made him hotter or not, but the surge of sensation running through his body certainly told him he felt _something_ at that thought.

She pushed him to his back, the bed bouncing his body up and down for just a moment as Vex straddled him. The only thing Percy really saw was her hair falling past her head, possibly the first time he’d ever seen her full hair outside its braid. He slid his hands past the curtain, holding her cheeks as she slowly lowered her hips down onto his.

Even though the feeling of Vex on his cock was a strong one, he was more breathless over her moans. She was an orchestra of beauty in the most primal sense of the word, and he was amazed at it. All thoughts Percy had while Vex bounced on his crotch were about her cries.

It wasn’t as if he’d never heard a woman moan while being fucked, of course. He’d pleased enough women to grow drunk off what they said because of him. But usually, whatever they would say would be thinly-cloaked with unrest, of a wanting something more. Percy had grown ashamed of it, if only a little, because he couldn’t be all that his partner would want.

Vex called out for him, leaning forward to hold his face as she continued thrusting herself on him, eyes unfocused but filled with a red-hot fire that he had only before seen dyed with hate at the Emon castle grounds, shooting at the Briarwoods from what felt like months ago. He realised then that he was able to give Vex all he could and she was satisfied with it.

It hit Percy hard in that second, that whatever sounds she slurred in that moment, whatever symphony she could sing out, resonated harder than he would’ve ever thought possible in his chest, her soundwave that found a partner in his heart.

His breath from his lungs caught in his throat, all his muscles tensing as he felt on the verge of an epiphany. Vex must’ve seen it, because she got off his dick and wrapped a hand around his shaft and began pumping. She pressed her mouth against his, swallowing up his cry as he felt fluid pushing itself out of him, her hand slowing as his muscles laxed. She broke the kiss, looking down at him with a smile, both of them kept within a small, hair-curtained jail of their faces.

 A poison hit Percy’s heart and his tired face tightened into a frown. “I’m sorry Vex, you never…” he started, but Vex shook her head, her hair shaking a half-beat after her.

 “I came a few seconds before you did, love,” she said, laughing softly with her own lost breath as she broke the curtain of their heads, falling to her side. Percy chuckled, pushing himself to face her. “You did come all over my hand, though.” She muttered, looking down at her unpinned hand, moving it against the light to see the milky-white fluid slowly droop off her skin. She dragged it against the bedding, and he laughed again.

Percy moved slowly closer to Vex, moving his free arm over her body. A tired mock of her chuckle spilled from her own tired body, inching closer to his natural body heat. Within a few seconds, he felt Vex slide her free arm against his waist, tucking her head into his chest.

Whether or not her breathing slowly evened out into rest he wouldn’t know, because as she slid her arm to hold him, all Percy remembered was thinking _I could lay like this forever_ before his eyes shut and sleep eagerly took him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sssssso. This took two and a half weeks, when I originally planned a half week to write it. Sorry 'bout that; life roundhouse kicked me in my jaw, and I've been mending it since. The glorious Bad News Bears boning is now done though, which is what really matters!!
> 
> Thank you to Reese, my best friend for lyfe, for making this not as crappy as it was pre-beta. Take a d10 inspiration, dude.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
